


when no one's looking

by screechfox



Series: they keep trying to row away [8]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Instincts, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sasha is also there for a single line, Self-Hatred, Self-Worth Issues, Shapeshifting, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27314890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screechfox/pseuds/screechfox
Summary: Before he knows what he’s doing, Jon reaches out and links his fingers with Martin’s.“I’m a monster,” he repeats, distantly aware that he’s hyperventilating. “I— I—”Or: It’s midnight, and Jon is eating raw fish at the table in Sasha’s tiny kitchen.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: they keep trying to row away [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735714
Comments: 34
Kudos: 208





	when no one's looking

**Author's Note:**

> happy halloween! my god, i've been working on this for months, and finished it in a fugue state today
> 
> i'd definitely advise that you read the rest of the series before this, but if you haven't: jon starts turning into a mermaid, and elias kidnaps him to use as ornamentation, isolating him and starving him (among other horrible things) until archivist sasha + tim and martin rescue him. this is set post the rescuing! 
> 
> i got into TMA for people having complicated emotions about their own descent into inhumanity, and boy does it show
> 
> (congratulations to the anon from two months ago who inspired this fic, although it's definitely not what you wanted: "I wish you would write a fic about Martin finding MerJon post-rescue stuffing his face with cold spaghetti in the middle of the night." salmon is not cold spaghetti but... maybe you'll get something out of this anyway?)

It’s midnight, and Jon is eating raw fish at the table in Sasha’s tiny kitchen. 

Sharp teeth tearing into flesh feels good and right — so natural that he knows it’s something he has to hide. His coworkers didn’t break into Elias’ house to rescue a monster, after all.

None of them have commented on the way they never seem to have enough fish, but Jon isn’t a fool: all three of them are observant, and they’re all favoured by the Watcher. They’ve noticed. Why they haven’t confronted him is a mystery; maybe they’re all as scared of Jon as he is.

Once Jon is finished eating, he’ll go upstairs to the bedroom and curl up wherever there’s space. His skin will be warm and human to the touch, and no one ever has to know that he faltered. In some ways, it’s a comfort. At least here, he can  _ pretend _ that he’s hiding things.

Jon is tearing another chunk out of the fish in his hands when the door creaks open.

It can only be Martin. Tim is naturally loud, and Sasha has a deliberate way of signalling her motions that can only come from supernatural insight, but Martin… Martin is quiet in a way Jon finds rather relatable, these days. He knows what it’s like to want to disappear.

“You alright? I thought I— I heard noises.” 

Even though Jon expects nothing less, it still hurts to hear Martin’s voice falter at the sight of him— and what a sight he must make: shark’s teeth bared, eyes ink-black. Perhaps his skin has even lit up beneath his borrowed clothes, betraying his inhumanity for all to see.

They wanted their coworker back. Jon still isn’t sure they managed to find him.

In the dark, Jon studies Martin’s expression. The furrow between his brow would be concern on any other day, but here in the middle of the night, disgust seems more likely. Clearly, Jon let his appetite get the better of him, if he’s been so loud that it wakes people up; Martin’s hair is messy, unbrushed.

“I’m sorry,” he manages, struggling to push the words past the edges of his teeth.

The scraping of his chair against the kitchen floor makes him wince. Steadying himself on the counter, he stumbles to the bin and discards what remains of the fish. He remembers his grandmother chiding him about wasting food, and winces again.

When he turns around to face Martin, he is at least fairly sure that he looks human again.

Martin hasn’t moved. He watches Jon with unmistakable wariness, glancing over his shoulder like he wants to call for the others. Come, bear witness to Jon’s shameful secret — how appropriate for the Watcher. The very thought of it makes Jon’s hands start to tremble. 

“Are you alright?” Martin says again, quieter this time. Cautious. Wary.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.” Jon holds his hands up, then thinks better of it, crossing his arms across his chest. His fingernails, still claw-sharp, dig at his skin through the fabric of the jumper.

“You didn’t— I was already awake. Bad dreams, you know?”

“Oh.” 

He imagines being Martin, half-awake in the darkness of the bedroom, feeling Jon get out of bed and— not saying anything? Letting Jon out of his sight, letting Jon’s hunger consume him? It’s an unfair thought: Martin couldn’t have known. The only one to blame for this is Jon.

“I suppose I should get back to bed,” Jon says, once the silence becomes unbearable. The air feels heavy with unspoken tension. Maybe it would be easier to shatter it, let it crack like glass, but Jon has always been too much of a coward to break things that should be broken. In the thin slivers of moonlight through the kitchen curtains, Martin suddenly looks very sad. 

“If you want. Tim and Sasha are still asleep, near as I could tell.”

Martin steps into the kitchen, leaving the door wide open behind him. Even so, Jon feels a rising sense of being trapped, a way out in sight but no way to take advantage of it. Elias had enjoyed toying with him like that, before he became too inhuman to even think of leaving.

He can’t bear to think about what will happen in the morning if he goes back to bed. 

Martin begins rummaging through the cupboards, back turned away. Jon’s nails could tear through his shirt — through his  _ flesh _ — so very easily. Jon shudders, unable to will himself to move. 

“I can cook you something, if you’re hungry,” Martin offers, like it’s nothing.

“What?”

Martin fixes him with a patient look. “I know it’s late but— I don’t think either of us are getting back to sleep? And you were— I mean, you seemed—”

“Ravenous, yes.” Jon’s voice sounds far away to his ears. “You don’t need to mince words, I know how it must have looked.”

Martin blinks at him, like he doesn’t know what Jon means. 

“Right,” he starts, doubtful. “Well, whatever it was, Tim and Sasha won’t mind if we get something out of the cupboards. Maybe not actually cooking, thinking about it, that’ll be noisy, but—”

“Martin,” Jon interrupts, faintly bewildered. 

Martin pauses, turning to face Jon properly. After all that time treated as decoration, Jon doesn’t entirely know how to handle having someone’s full attention anymore. He fidgets, his bluster faltering under Martin’s concern. It looks genuine— but how could it be? He’s seen what Jon is.

“Jon? Do you— is there something you  _ want _ me to say?” 

It’s painful to swallow, like it had been when his voice was fading, when his teeth were growing in. He clutches at the counter behind him, white-knuckled, desperate for any meagre sense of grounding it can provide. He’s probably making dreadful scratch marks.

“I’m a monster,” he manages at last. “You and Tim and Sasha— you rescued a monster.”

“What?”

Jon isn’t sure when it happened, but Martin is suddenly standing very close. His hands hover in the space between them, but they don’t quite bridge the distance, as though there’s a pane of glass keeping them apart. No one could ever mistake Martin’s blunt nails for a monster’s claws.

Before he knows what he’s doing, Jon reaches out and links his fingers with Martin’s.

“I’m a monster,” he repeats, distantly aware that he’s hyperventilating. “I— I—”

His vision is blurring, hot wet tears spilling from his eyes and down his cheeks. 

“Hey, hey.” The strain of panic in Martin’s voice is almost a comfort — at least that’s something that Jon was prepared for. “Come on, sit down.”

He lets Martin pull him towards the table, pressing him gently into a chair and then sitting down across from him. Their hands remain linked all the while; Jon isn’t even sure he knows how to let go anymore. His fingers seem to have turned to marble, unyielding against Martin’s concern.

(In the tank, he dreamed of Elias carving into him with a chisel and a smile. 

Sometimes Jon sank to the bottom of the ocean, unable to flick his tail and swim free. Sometimes he was placed in Artefact Storage and forgotten, unable to call out to the coworkers whose faces he only distantly recalled. 

They were uneasy dreams, but no more of a nightmare than the life he was living. When he woke and tasted chlorine on his tongue, it was so often a relief.)

“Breathe,” Martin says, voice level. “Just follow me: in, then out, okay?”

Before, Jon would have snapped at him, reminded him that he didn’t need to be coaxed into things like a child — but whoever Jon is now, sharp-toothed and filled with animal anger, he is also so pathetically grateful for the care that Martin takes with him.

In, then out. It seems almost too easy when Martin puts it like that.

They sit like that for a while, Jon’s gaze locked on the steady rise and fall of Martin’s chest. He catalogues the sounds around him — traffic and conversation on the street below, the gentle hum of Sasha’s creaking old central heating, and him and Martin, breathing in unison. It isn’t like the tank, where the pressure of water drowned out even the song that Elias prized so highly.

Clarity falls across him gradually, like the slow ascent of sunrise on a winter’s morning. He sorts his rushing thoughts into simple sentences: He’s in Sasha’s tiny kitchen; Martin is coaxing him out of a panic attack; underneath his human skin, Jon is a monster.

It still hurts, but the hurt has less pressure to it; it’s a raincloud, not a typhoon.

“Thank you,” Jon manages, stilted. He’s fairly sure that this is the point where he should extricate his fingers from the fishing-net tangle they’ve made with Martin’s, but… that doesn’t happen. His hands stay where they are, and so do Martin’s, pressing humanity into Jon’s skin.

A delighted smile flickers across Martin’s face at Jon’s words, so quick that he almost doesn’t see it before it’s subsumed under a quiet sort of contemplation. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Martin asks.

Jon can breathe for himself now, long slow inhales followed by long slow exhales. He feels abruptly exhausted, his lack of sleep making itself known. 

“Do I have a choice?” He wants it to be cold and sharp, and it is, but in a brittle way, shattering like shards of ice on his tongue. The question doesn’t hurt anyone but himself.

“I mean, yeah?” Martin chews on his lip, glancing away as he contemplates his next words. “Obviously I’m worried, but— it’s up to you, isn’t it?”

Jon can’t decide if he wants to laugh or cry at that; the sound that comes out of him makes a flash of panic cross Martin’s face. Jon squeezes his hand, a silent  _ I’m alright _ that he hopes Martin can understand. It’s a quiet code he’d used with Georgie, then with Sasha and Tim, but— well, he’s coming to realise that he doesn’t know Martin, not really. 

“Will you tell Tim and Sasha?” Jon asks, his voice is steady this time. It echoes like an ultimatum, one Jon doesn’t know the consequences of. Does he even want this kept a secret, really? Wouldn’t it be safer if Tim and Sasha knew?

(If Jon doesn’t tell them, Elias will, holding Jon’s inhumanity over his Archivist’s head like the awful truth that it is. He’ll only be buying himself some time — and that’s what got him into this situation in the first place.)

“Not if you don’t want me to,” Martin says, firmer this time.

“Alright.”

They sit in silence for a few moments as Jon tries to piece his words together. Conversation is becoming easier with every day that passes, but it’s still a struggle to be engaged in talking with another person — to have his voice be welcomed, rather than dismissed. He writes things down sometimes, unsteady handwriting in a pocket-size notebook Tim dug out of his desk, but even if he could bring himself to pull away from Martin, he thinks his hands would shake too much to write anything remotely coherent.

“I’m not the same person that I was before,” Jon says at last, the words heavy on his tongue.

Martin’s expression sharpens into an incredulous anger that makes Jon shrink, shoulders tensing against the back of the chair. He fucked that one up, then. “You were trapped in there for  _ months,” _ Martin says, voice gone high. “That’s— that’s going to have left an impact.”

“I know that,” Jon snaps, relieved to hear something scathing in his own voice. “If I was just worried about trauma, I’d see a goddamn therapist.”

Martin blinks, eyes wide with worry. After a few moments of silence, he raises his eyebrows.

Jon sighs. “Near the beginning, Elias told me— what was happening to me was changing my mind, as well as my body. Designed to spread fear, I think he said. Violence, too.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” Martin replies immediately, cheeks flushed. It’s so sudden that it shocks a laugh out of Jon, and Martin’s expression softens at that. “You don’t think so, though.” 

“No,” Jon agrees, running his tongue over his blunt human teeth. “I’m— I feel more angry. I’m on edge all of the time, and the slightest thing makes me want to—” Jon falters, shame making heat rise in his face. “To hurt people. Sometimes it feels like the only way I’ll ever be safe again.”

“And you think you might hurt us,” Martin finishes, his voice gone very quiet.

“I— Maybe.”

Jon’s thought processes could just be the result of trauma, he knows that. Violence was the only thing resembling agency that he had for a long time — the taste of Elias’ blood in his mouth the only sense of victory. It could just be that his mind hasn’t caught up to the fact that he’s free.

All the same… if there’s even the slightest chance that what Elias said is true, it would be irresponsible of Jon to discount it. If this is what he is now, he has to mitigate the damage.

“You’re in enough danger as it is,” Jon continues. From what he’s heard from Elias, he’d hazard that the archival staff have had a worse year than he has. “You shouldn’t— invite it in, as such.”

Martin hums. He doesn’t argue, which Jon is grateful for, but neither does he agree.

“You know Sasha is kind of psychic now, don’t you? If she thought you were a threat—”

“The Ceaseless Watcher doesn’t know everything.” Jon thinks of hiding in Elias’ blindspots for days on end, knowing that eventually Elias would lose his patience and turn the filtration systems off, letting Jon choke until he finally crawled back into sight. “Trust me on that.”

“Oh,” Martin says, his own expression turned glass-fragile. “Right.”

Jon nods; Martin’s expression has summed it all up rather neatly.

“Where would you go?” Martin asks. They can both feel the hanging end of that question, the completion neither of them want to think about —  _ where would you go if you could? _ They’re both wrapped into the Archivist’s power, and not even Sasha herself can set them free.

“I… I don’t know. The ocean, maybe?”

“The ocean?”

“I don’t think I’d have any difficulty catching fish to eat, and it would keep me away from people.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“Mm.” Jon nods, imagining it. Really, confining himself to the ocean would leave him no less captive than he was with Elias — and rather less guaranteed of his own survival. “Boring, too,” he says, instead of thinking about Elias. “The ocean isn’t exactly teeming with reading material.”

Martin laughs at that, smile spreading wide and dimples forming on his cheeks. It echoes onto Jon’s face, his lips pulling up just slightly at the edges. There’s a warmth spreading in his chest, a sense of belonging that he’d thought long-forgotten. 

“You’d put yourself through that to try and keep us safe?” The teasing edge to Martin’s voice doesn’t quite sustain itself, faltering into earnest awe. “I don’t think that’s a monstrous thing to do at all.”

Jon’s gaze drops to the table; he can’t bear the sight of the misplaced admiration in Martin’s eyes.

“I’m just trying to keep a hold of what I have left of myself.”

Martin squeezes his hand, and Jon squeezes back. 

The panic of earlier has faded into something numb and tired, thought processes that had seemed so sensible faltering under the scrutiny of a calmer temperament.

What had Jon expected, exactly? It’s hard to remember in hindsight, the memories already turned hazy as meltdowns often do — will he even properly remember this in a week’s time? The hunger of a meal half-finished is only complicating things; he rather wishes he’d been in the right state of mind to accept Martin’s offered food.

He hears Martin inhale, about to speak, and braces himself for any number of questions— except for the one he receives.

“How does it feel? To change, I mean.”

Jon glances back up at Martin in surprise. He can find nothing but curiosity in Martin’s expression, an open thing that speaks of nothing except wanting to understand.

“I…” Jon rolls the words in his mouth, considering how best to phrase it. “It’s like taking everything off at the end of a long day. It feels natural. This, me—” he gestures at himself, Tim’s clothes ill-fitting over the sharp, under-fed angles of his body, “it doesn’t feel natural anymore.” 

“Give it time,” Martin murmurs, his voice betraying his doubt. 

“Mm. Maybe you’re right.”

In truth, Jon can’t imagine ever feeling right in his own human skin again. He feels fragile like this, restless and unguarded; Sasha was right when she told me that the power which changed him considers humanity a weakness. He feels weaker than he ever has, utterly powerless

“When I sleep,” he starts, the words pouring out of him slowly, then all at once, “I dream that I’m this leviathan. Every flick of my tail creates tidal waves, every wave of my hand creates whirlpools. I dig my teeth into whales and listen to the way they sing as they die. It— I enjoy it, in the dream.” 

Martin looks more and more troubled with every word Jon says. Something in Jon feels vindictively satisfied — if Martin isn’t going to reject him for his monstrosity, he should have to know every detail of it. The rest of him just feels very tired. 

“… Are you going to grow?” Martin asks, sounding a little incredulous about the matter.

“I don’t know,” Jon replies honestly. In all the snatches of knowledge Elias had provided him, he’d neglected to tell Jon exactly what entity was claiming him. Maybe that leaves him open to all of them — or at least the ones that might have some use for a deep-sea predator. “I’m certainly not ruling it out, as much as I’d like to.”

“Right, of course.” Martin pauses, then offers a weak smile. “I bet the growing pains would be hell.”

Jon finds himself grinning wryly, not even worrying about keeping his teeth blunt and safe. “Oh, I’m sure they would be. I had enough of that with my first growth spurt, thank you very much.”

Martin’s answering laugh is stronger than his smile had been, something delighted and scandalised to his expression. It looks like Jon has a new audience for — ah, how did Georgie always phrase it — being a sarcastic prick. Tim and Sasha are probably tired of it after a couple of years of working in Research with him.

The sound of creaking floorboards elsewhere in the house puts a damper on Jon’s good mood, but not as much as he’d expected. He finally works up the energy to pull his hands away from Martin’s, burying them in the pockets of Tim’s borrowed hoodie to stave off the cold.

“Everything alright?” Fittingly, it’s Tim’s voice, still half-slurred from sleep as he pushes through the door. 

His hair is just as messy from sleep as Martin’s is, although he has a way of making it look intentional that Jon has never quite understood. Tim looks between the two of them, and Jon has no doubt that there’d be a salacious grin on his face if he weren’t still so drowsy.

“What happened to ‘Tim and Sasha are asleep’?” Jon asks Martin, raising a brow.

“Well, they  _ were _ asleep.” Martin ducks his head, cheeks flushing. “But apparently not anymore!” 

Tim holds up his hands in placation, an easy smile making its way onto his face. “I was just getting up to take a piss when I heard voices, that’s all. Are we having a midnight feast?”

“Of sorts,” Jon finds himself admitting, startled at himself. “Someone is going to have to go and buy some salmon tomorrow. And—” here, he falters.

“We probably all need to have a proper conversation about next steps,” Martin finishes.

“… Right. If you’re expecting me to pick up on your subtext, I’m not caffeinated enough for that.” He pauses, peering through the dark at the clock on the wall. “And I’m not going to be, because I love myself too much to subject myself to coffee at three in the morning.”

If Tim were more awake, Jon might think he was deflecting to spare Jon any more emotional turmoil. As it is, he might still be doing that — or he might just be being Tim. Hard to say.

“I’m very proud of you,” Jon responds, dry as dust. 

Tim gives him a jaunty salute, nearly hitting himself in the eye in the process, and then leaves.

“I suppose I’d better try and get some more sleep too,” Martin says, pushing himself up from his chair. He seems almost sheepish about it, wry regret written across his face.

Jon nods his assent. “I’ll be there in a bit. Just… give me a moment.”

Martin considers him for a long moment, then nods in turn. “Goodnight, Jon.”

“Goodnight,” Jon calls, a little belatedly.

The empty kitchen no longer feels like somewhere he shouldn’t be. It’s just Sasha’s kitchen, with it’s mismatched furniture and unreliable oven. It’s not safe, precisely — nowhere is — but neither does it feel like his tomb any longer.

True to his word, Jon gets up without too much dithering. He steadies himself on the wall as he walks down the corridor, and, on a whim, heads into the bathroom.

The reflection in the mirror is his. He lets himself shift, sharp teeth gleaming and skin all aglow, and the reflection is still… him. Jon is himself either way; whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, he isn’t sure. Is it better or worse to recognise yourself in a monster?

With a sigh, he flicks the light off and wanders up to the bedroom. Everyone is lying in a tangle on Sasha’s ridiculously sized bed, and they’re all doing a damned good impression of being asleep.

In the morning, they’ll talk — or maybe in the afternoon, given the combined chaos of their respective sleep schedules. The dread is already settling in around his shoulders, but it’s the kind of dread he can live with until the time comes.

(He holds no illusions that he’ll comport himself well in whatever discussion they end up having. At the very least, Martin has some idea of what to prepare for.)

Jon sighs— then startles as Martin holds out a beckoning hand.

“Come on,” Martin whispers. “Get some sleep, if you can.”

Jon takes his hand, letting Martin pull him into the center of their sleeping arrangement, gentle warmth on all sides. Sasha stirs briefly and drapes an arm across his shoulder, relaxed enough that he could easily push her away should he feel the need.

Martin won’t be angry if he doesn’t sleep. Concerned, maybe, but not concerned  _ at _ him — concerned  _ for _ him. Jon doesn’t have any responsibility that he doesn’t want, not right now.

“If I can,” Jon agrees. “I think I can manage that.”


End file.
